Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Shakespearean Metaphysics

Shakespearean Metaphysics

Witmore, Michael

Hardcover

Series: Shakespeare Now!

PhilosophyLiterary CriticismShakespeare

ISBN10: 0826490433
ISBN13: 9780826490438
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: Dec 28 2008
Pages: 156
Weight: 0.73
Height: 0.44 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Metaphysics is usually associated with that part of the philosophical tradition which asks about last things, questions such as: How many substances are there in the world? Which is more fundamental, quantity or quality? Are events prior to things? Or do they happen to those things? While he wasn't a philosopher, Shakespeare was obviously interested in ultimates of this sort. Instead of probing these issues with argument, however, he did so with plays. Shakespearean Metaphysics argues for Shakespeare's inclusion within a metaphysical tradition that opposes empiricism and Cartesian dualism. Through close readings of three major plays-The Tempest, King Lear and Twelfth Night-Witmore proposes that Shakespeare's manner of depicting life on stage itself constitutes an answer to metaphysical questions raised by later thinkers as Spinoza, Bergson, and Whitehead. Each of these readings shifts the interpretative frame around the plays in radical ways; taken together they show the limits of our understanding of theatrical play as an illusion generated by the physical circumstances of production.

1 different editions

Also available

Also in

Philosophy

View All